Wordpress

Okay, a bit of hyperbole, but if you’re trying to get bigger results from your blog, this will be damn good.

In this article we are looking at the 3 plugins we use the most often on this site.

Think of a plugin like an app on your phone. They can be a waste of time and actually slow down your site…or they can be amazing and make life oh-so-much-better. Add to that, most plugins are free, or at the very least have a free version.

Here they are:

1. Better Click to Tweet2. Insert Post Ads3. Editorial Calendar

I’m going to spell out the steps for each plug in below. You can also grab some popcorn and watch this 12 minute video.

1. Better Click to Tweet

This might be the simplest improvement you make to your blogs results—make it easy for readers to Tweet about your blog. In our goldfish-like attention world, nothing is better than saving your customers’ time.

Better Click to Tweet is a simple, free plugin that makes it super easy to let your readers, with just 2 clicks, share your post to all of their followers on Twitter. And that one tweet can put you in front of thousands of followers loyal to that reader.

Copy a quote from your blog you want readers to share. Click on the location in your post you want to insert the click to tweet. Click on the blue bird in your menu bar, paste the quote and you’re done!

2. Insert Post Ads

This plugin is amazing! I first came across it on Mike Stelzner’s Social Media Examiner’s blog (which has become like a Wiki for how-to social media). I noticed there were ads for his conference on every blog post. And I knew he had thousands of posts – clearly it wasn’t possible to have inserted the ad manually. That’s when I had a peak at his source code and viola!..Insert Post Ads (Thank You Mike.)

On any WordPress site, you can insert a banner for a webinar, live event (like Stelzner did for his conference), book sales, optin, content upgrade, a sale event or your daughter’s lemonade stand.

Within a few minutes your advertisement/offer/announcement is on every blog post on your site. And just as quickly you can remove it.

Here’s how this clever little plugin works…

Once you have the plugin installed (did I mention it’s free?).

1. Drop the banner image you want displayed into a draft page on your WordPress site. You won’t be publishing this page – it’s just there so you can quickly get the html code from the image.

2. Click on the image, go to edit, and select “Link to Custom URL” and paste the link to the event or sales page you want to promote. Click “Update” to save the banner. Now that you have a linked banner, you need to load that into the Insert Post Ads plugin.

3. Click on “Text” to display the HTML code for that page (if you’re getting confused, watch the video on this page.) Copy the code for that banner into your clipboard. Click “Save Draft” to save your page in WordPress.

4. Go to your Insert Post Ads plugin “Post Adverts > Add New Posts.” Enter the name of the new insert where it says “Advert Title.” Paste the HTML code into “Advert code:” Choose “Display the advert After Paragraph Number” and choose a number. Click “Publish”

I encourage you to write out the steps so next month when you go to replace the banner it’s much quicker.

3. Editorial Calendar

I think I saved my favourite for last.

Imagine having all your blog posts – past and future – nicely organized and displayed on a calendar. Automatically! That’s what the Editorial Calendar plugin (yup, free as well) will do.

[Imagine having all your blog posts – past and future – nicely organized and displayed on a calendar. Automatically!]

All you have to do is install the plugin and presto! it populates with all your posted blogs and – this is my favourite part – it lists all your draft posts in a tidy list in a right-hand side bar.

But, wait, there’s more! (thank you Steve Jobs for that one.)

You can do a quick edit of a draft right from the calendar. You can also move your draft posts on the calendar and it will automagically update the posting date on the draft.

If you aren’t using a more robust tool, like coschedule or post planner, Editorial Calendar is a slick, nibble alternative. And if you collaborate with an editor or assistant, this tool will save you tons of emails back and forth about dates.

You’re welcome.

Ready to learn more? Here are 3 of our most popular articles on this topic:

Install the sumo or social warfare floating social share bars to encourage more readers to share your articles.

Share your best stuff. You readers will be attracted (and will share) your best ideas, solutions, strategies, and resources.

Finally, keep the faith—all successful bloggers started small and slow, persistence and consistency are more important than perfection. Keep writing, publishing and promoting!

Whoa! I know this was a long list.

And so we have two more thoughts for you…

First, you don’t need to do all of this. In fact, you don’t need to do half of it! Instead, choose one change you will make this month. Believe it or not, in our research we have found the most blogs never change! Year after year there is virtually zero attention given to plug ins, format, easy ways to share the post…nothing.So, go easy on yourself and choose one thing for this month (my favourite would be to add the cool, free Editorial Calendar).

Lastly, you might have noticed that there are only 51 tips in our list, and not 52. That’s because you deserve a break! For at least one week, slack off. A great way to do that is to schedule your posts in advance (see #14 and #15 to save time.)

There you have it – great tips you can use one at a time. Have fun with it—your blog is a license to be creative and experiment. Do that and your readers will reward you with more readers.

What Makes a Great Error 404 Page?

When it comes to making an error 404 page that really stands out, it needs to do three things:

1. Match your site’s design

When creating a 404 page, don’t make it look so radically different from the rest of your site that people don’t know it’s you. Use similar colors, fonts, and styles as the rest of your design.

2. Make it obvious there’s an error

This sounds like a no-brainer, but don’t get so creative they don’t realize they’ve made it to a broken link. Include the usual “404 You’re in the wrong place” message, but give them more.

Some typical wording includes:

404 Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server.

HTTP 404 Not Found

404 Error

The page cannot be found

3. Link to useful stuff

Give them an obvious next step so they’re not left wondering what to do next! This could be as simple as returning to the home page, but I recommend adding links to your blog, popular pages, and any other resources you think they might like.

We spend hours making everything perfect. The design, the content, the copy…

…but, sometimes, the templates we use just don’t have all the features we need.

That’s where plugins come in.

WordPress powers more than 30% of the web, so chances are you’re using this amazing platform as well. We are, and we’ve found some incredible WordPress plugins that help us to create amazing content, and they can help you as well.

Without further ado, here are 7 plugins you need to install right now:

It also allows you to segment your customers based on which form they fill out or which options they choose, A/B test to see what converts the best and create clickable text to show popup forms if you’re using a content upgrade or lead magnet.

So, instead of linking to “yourwebsite.com/some-crazy-long-url-for-seo”, your link would look like this: “yourwebsite.com/pretty-link”. But the best part is the analytics part of it; Instead of using a link shortener link bit.ly to track shares, you can just use Pretty Link.

Additionally, using this plugin lets you redirect from shorter URL links to your original longer one, which allows for easy sharing if you’re, say, speaking on a podcast. It’s much easier to say (and easier for your listeners to type) “yourwebsite.com/oneword” than a longer URL.